Defeated by puzzle - campaign over: Here is the offending puzzle!

[DonTadow]

I am in no means being negative. But again, it hurts the game to have a dm influence players like this. Roman really should understand that... factually, and this is not an opinion, his DM made a bad campaign structuring move. Considering what Roman has told us, this is typical of this DM, thus I would suggest that he is a bad DM.

#1 The puzzle was unfair
In many of books including the DMG, the bible of DMing, it states that the DM should be fare and fun. Considering the evidence, that no one has solved this puzzle (and you're talking pros in the business) this puzzle is not fare. Furthermore, he had the campaign end and did not properly warn his players that there was a puzzle such as this nor how to solve such a puzzle. YOu stated that your group gathered history and such of the location, however, why was there no hints you gathered about this "upcoming puzzle". It seems to me that you guys attempted to properly investigate the tomb previously (something I wish my players did more often) and yetyou are still punished for it.

. This is clearly unfair.

#2 THe DM improperly planned the adventure
He put a lhigh level dungeon in the reaching grasps of mid level players. The DMG tells Dms to design challenging adventures and not make your adventures linear. Which even you, the player have said he did. The dm could have also fudged some things, however, he was too focused on himself and "his" campaign to care what happened to you, the pcs. This is a flaw that many DMs make. They design these wonderful scenerios and dungeons only to be outwitted by the PCs. Your dm was too stubborn to rethink his flaw.

#3 A DM's intent shoudl never be to kill the entire party. This is clearly stated. Yetyour DM allowed your party to be killed. He had time between sessions to rethink his mistake, but again he was too stubborn.

Thus the conclusion is that your DM made many mental judgements purposely and screwed you over wasting a year of your life on a campaign that he did not design for his players but for himself. This can also be told by the many rules and restrictions already balanced classes are plagued with.

I am not critizing you but I do hope you see that this DM is not an ideal DM for any typical d and d game.

 

[tarchon]

Anyone try doing some linear algebra on the thing - after all - it *could* be considered a matrix of sorts...

It could possibly be a Hadamard matrix - how that would help solve it, I couldn't say. Perhaps the idea is to fill in the proper elements to make its product with its transpose equal to the identity times the order. Dang - now, why didn't I think of that to begin with?

Oh wait - it has three symbols, so never mind.

 

[Hannibal King]

Hi guys, is the only way to subscribe to a thread by posting to it? Is there no 'subscribe to this thread' button in the main window?

Anyway I have used puzzles in the past and some have been really hard but they were of the type that once the answer was given you heard the chorus of hands smacking foreheads and claims of "how'd I miss that?!". I know everyone and his dog has said it but to have a campaign end cause of a puzzle is so, SO, wrong. Maybe the DM was actually bored with the campaign and saw this puzzle as an easy (read foolproof) way out?

HK

 

[Coredump]

#1 The puzzle was unfair

#2 THe DM improperly planned the adventure

#3 A DM's intent shoudl never be to kill the entire party.

This is more forceful than I was willing to be. But I do agree with what Don has said.

 

[thalmin]

Hi guys, is the only way to subscribe to a thread by posting to it? Is there no 'subscribe to this thread' button in the main window?

snip

HK

At the top of the first post on each page (after the poll) click on "Thread Tools" then click on "Subscribe to this thread" in the drop-down.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Tried some algabraic stuff...I failed.

Now, my methodology could have been wrong...

 

[Hannibal King]

At the top of the first post on each page (after the poll) click on "Thread Tools" then click on "Subscribe to this thread" in the drop-down.

Thanks thalmin. It was right in front of my face!
HK

 

[thalmin]

Thanks thalmin. It was right in front of my face!
HK

If only the puzzle solution was as easy.

 

[Gorrstagg]

I am in no means being negative. But again, it hurts the game to have a dm influence players like this. Roman really should understand that... factually, and this is not an opinion, his DM made a bad campaign structuring move. Considering what Roman has told us, this is typical of this DM, thus I would suggest that he is a bad DM.

#1 The puzzle was unfair
In many of books including the DMG, the bible of DMing, it states that the DM should be fare and fun. Considering the evidence, that no one has solved this puzzle (and you're talking pros in the business) this puzzle is not fare. Furthermore, he had the campaign end and did not properly warn his players that there was a puzzle such as this nor how to solve such a puzzle. YOu stated that your group gathered history and such of the location, however, why was there no hints you gathered about this "upcoming puzzle". It seems to me that you guys attempted to properly investigate the tomb previously (something I wish my players did more often) and yetyou are still punished for it.

. This is clearly unfair.

#2 THe DM improperly planned the adventure
He put a lhigh level dungeon in the reaching grasps of mid level players. The DMG tells Dms to design challenging adventures and not make your adventures linear. Which even you, the player have said he did. The dm could have also fudged some things, however, he was too focused on himself and "his" campaign to care what happened to you, the pcs. This is a flaw that many DMs make. They design these wonderful scenerios and dungeons only to be outwitted by the PCs. Your dm was too stubborn to rethink his flaw.

#3 A DM's intent shoudl never be to kill the entire party. This is clearly stated. Yetyour DM allowed your party to be killed. He had time between sessions to rethink his mistake, but again he was too stubborn.

Thus the conclusion is that your DM made many mental judgements purposely and screwed you over wasting a year of your life on a campaign that he did not design for his players but for himself. This can also be told by the many rules and restrictions already balanced classes are plagued with.

I am not critizing you but I do hope you see that this DM is not an ideal DM for any typical d and d game.

Heya Don,

I just want to make sure were not overlooking something from the DM's perspective. And making our opinions based off of unknown variables.

Status Quo vs Tailored.

See with the DM not responding at all in this thread, what we don't know and possibly what Roman doesn't know or isn't even aware of, is that this dungeon, was literally a Status Quo scenario.

Meaning, it would be in the campaign world irregardless of whether it was appropriate for the players/characters or not.

They discuss this in the DMG..

Let's put the whole thing into a specific context.

Imagine if the DM had designed said dungeon exactly how he did, but it was a Great Red Wyrm in the room, instead of a puzzle. It surely would of been a real TPK. But by the same token, it was there, and had been there from when the characters were 1st level.. and at any point in their adventures.

Vs, the entire encounter being specifically tailored to the characters in the party, and made very tough, but plausible if they worked well and had a bit of luck on their side.. having the dungeon only contain stuff that was within 3 EL's of the party, with monsters that were appropriate for the pc's.

So, we don't know if the DM was being a real butt nugget or not. We don't know if this place was in place for his world, and they just happened to go off on a tangent and think it was really important. We know nothing of that unfortunately.

On one hand, I've considered that maybe the DM put up the entire dungeon as it was, specifically to drive the PC's away.. significant stat draining.. every hallway.. whoa.. that would of been pretty much enough to make even a level 16 party walk the hell out of there.
Or simply just ran it as it was.. and if they had done even more research they may of found a clue to the puzzle.. even a warning to the puzzle.

These things are uknown variables.

I'm not trying to protect this DM.. I think letting an entire campaign end this was really horrible. What I think only matters to a degree in conversations. But, such actions on the part of the DM would of been.. a serious problem with the gaming groups I've run and played in over the years.

Me.. I just want an answer to the puzzle.. and I want to know how that answer was supposed to be correct. And how it was supposed to be derived solely from the puzzle itself, and the single clue presented. Then I want to know where he found said puzzle, why he honestly put it there.. so I can understand the madness behind the decision.

And I want Roman to call this DM and not wait until Friday to get the answer.. and I know it's Good to Want.. *grin* and we'll have to wait and see what the answer is.. but as it stands right now.. I find the DM's placement without any correllary to the pc's after it finished the campaign with a reasoning behind it, or the usual, "I told you guys many times to avoid the damn temple.. you insisted on going.. and tommy over there would never actually write down what I said ... so when he verbally kept relaying the information to you that he had received in private.. he kept getting it all wrong. And that is upon him.."

We just don't know what's up.

Though I tend to think Roman doth protest to much when trying to get us to stop bashing his DM, when he wrote two seperate threads on the subject including the ending puzzle in question. It sounds like fair grumbling.. but accept it Roman.. this behavior on the DM's part, that was conveyed to you, upon which you've conveyed to us.. is almost a wash.. and you've heard tons of people say they wouldn't accept that for their entertainment.

I personally am trying to be amoral and see both the sides of the puzzle, right or wrong notwithstanding. Just it being there.. and the repercussions. But then by the same token, now that I've looked at the puzzle.. I want to know how it was supposed to be solved.. especially considering how many people have been reading this and posting to it.. and how many views it's received.

 

[Roman]

I agree with your opinion T Foster. After reading further into it, your party really should have cleared an escape route. A PC in my game is currently upset with the party because they went half assed into a hidden tomb to gather ore in the caveryns beneath it without securing an escape route nor coming up with an ulterior solution.

However, I still say that a dm should avoid a TPK campaign ending session if he can and this could very well be one of those situations. I go back to my earlier comments and I question what was the purpose of your campaign? This puzzle was the equivelent of an encounter that had a cr that was way too high for hte party. IN my campaign once two people go down, i'm going to have to fudge as it is never fun to have a tpk for any side. 2 or 3 people a session is good enough for the party to learn their lesson but if everyone in the party dies theres no lesson to be learned and you have to start a different campaign.

An escape route is difficult to clear when stuff behind you 'refills' back to full, but most likely we could have done a better job at it than we have. However, we did know that we would be able to 'teleport' out if we reached the last room.

Roman you never answered my earlier questions about what type of campaign was this? WAs this just a few sesson camaign or a lenghty yearly campaign?

I did answer this. The campaign was running for a year before we reached this point.